An August Weekend

8' Mammoth sunflower from the garden

I don't know if its the high heat of the end of summer, or me just trying to relax a little more on the weekends. but recently, we have been trying to take things a little slower around the house.

In fact, I have not even made a post on the blog for more than a month. In the meantime, Becca has been blogging more often than ever, filling the blog with pretty pictures of things to come.


Hazel greeting me on the couch, for the first time since she was a kitten.

In other news, Hazel has started jumping on my chest/belly, a skill she used to practice exclusively on Becca. For some reason, she has become more spunky and social in the last few weeks, which is cool.

I, the pragmatist, think we need to focus on before and after projects for the blog. However, we have really gotten a lot of comments on her most recent stories, which focus on design and future kitchen plans. What do I know?

Now for some pictures of small progress, from the weekend.


A freshly patched concrete step. The dark grey area is the new concrete, which will probably turn white in a few weeks.

I had been meaning for a while to patch a few small holes in my steps to the house. We have nicely aged concrete steps, so I was apprehensive about matching the concrete color, and making a mess that I can't clean up. Anyways, I just decided to go for it, and cross my fingers.



Wooden form screwed to step.

I screwed a wooden form around the step to guide the new concrete. Once I got it snug to the original form, I mixed up some fast setting concrete in a bucket. The hardest part was not to make a mess and spread new concrete unecessarily over the rest of the old step.

I really tried to mix the concrete with as little water as possible, so it would not be runny/messy.


Old rusted hole in step

There were old holes from a rusted out old handrail, dirt and junk needed to be hosed out before I started mixing the concrete. I also applied a liquid latex paint to help the old concrete and new concrete bond better.



Patching concrete is not very glamorous, but hopefully this latest fix will protect the steps for many more years to come.